Copper Rock ?

**Copper Head** · 06-04-2015, 11:35 PM

My route for work has plenty of county dirt roads.
after winter road crews rebuild dirt roads with Rocks & clay sand .
On a stop I notice the classic copper oxide greenish color rock
after picking up I see the weight is nice for a 4 inch by 3/4 wide
rock . Yes it has rock like chip edges , there is nothing about it that says any thing but a rock except
1) it pings after getting hit
2) I rubbed hard on my pants and the copper shows with a shimmer

I can cut into it but first I want to see if I stumbled onto a copper rock ?? mixed in with road crew repair rocks
Evey thing say copper to me and the condition is natural formation
I feel a chunk of copper mixed with rocks still would show it's man made heritage
I'll get a picture to you

**DakotaRog** · 06-05-2015, 12:26 AM

CH- Don't know where "Up North" you're located but the UP of Michigan was the country's first Cu mining region. My boss is a geologist and showed me some cool copper-silver rocks that people sell on ebay. I'll finsd out the name of them tomorrow. Glaciers may have moved Cu rocks down to your location or somehow gravel got brought to your location, although generally gravel isn't hauled long distances for road work.

Here's some info on MI's copper mining
Copper I

**Copper Head** · 06-05-2015, 07:48 AM

north east PA NY area 250 to 300 miles
from Michigan
The gravel use for road work are sized from egg size to cherry and ground up .
Our areas are known for shale and I have seen shale used as a base but it's topped off with
a solid stone type that a hammers can't easily bust up unlike shale
I looked around and found no others like this.
Under the conditions of these rocks brought in from ??
It's a rare find that here it sat on top of other rocks at the spot I stop
my truck , they regraded 10 miles of roads there must be more of these
rock chunks around

**HipoGear** · 06-05-2015, 09:11 AM

I wonder if it possibly came down to you by water from Lake Huron to Lake Erie. Or was dropped along the path by some other Native American Tribes.

"drift copper" — removed from the rocks by the glaciers and dropped randomly in the glacial debris. The Indians were made aware of the existence of the metal by masses of float copper carried south by the glaciers and left lying on the surface.

Copper from these mines was widely distributed throughout the country, and it is probable that numerous tribes made summer pilgrimages to the Upper Peninsula to get supplies of the precious metal.

However it got there, it sounds like a really cool find

**poison76ivy** · 06-05-2015, 03:24 PM

I totally want to see a picture of that!!

**DakotaRog** · 06-05-2015, 03:38 PM

CH- It appears that your Cu rock probably has a lot closer origins than I lead you to believe. I talked to my boss today. The guy is a walking encylopedia of anything to do with U.S. geology. He told me there were some well known smaller copper mines in the Delaware Water Gap of NJ-PA (see the links below as a couple of examples). So that's a lot closer to you than the UP of Michigan!!

Pahaquarry Copper Mine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Delaware Water Gap: Copper Mines - Rattlesnake Swamp | njHiking.com

Stories: A Ride Down Old Mine Road NJ - Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area (U.S. National Park Service)

People sell various copper rocks on ebay (and I suppose other places). Search for "native copper" and you'll find good numbers of different types and from different places. Some formations have silver chunks embedded in the Cu ore. Pretty!!!

**HipoGear** · 06-05-2015, 03:45 PM

I misread your location as NW

Delaware Water Gap is a beautiful area. I used to live just south of there. What they call the Slate Belt.

**Copper Head** · 06-05-2015, 10:48 PM

20150605_070059_zpswrpsy46k.jpg Photo by kpic4 | Photobucket

20150605_070044_zpszl5kyp5w.jpg Photo by kpic4 | Photobucket

This is the copper rock , it seems to be solid copper . It is intriguing to me as sure I realize it's not rare
but I feel if I walk on that road it wont yield any more . When you think how much copper we scrap and how we know it's use
Well here
I hold a copper rock that survived industrial use and as old as the earth is old . Copper is my favorite and this represents my best find in respect to comparing all my finds from all sources ,
Finding copper like this is humbling
I will not sell it , as it connects me to what copper is before we mess with it .
-------------------------------------
Ebay made it clear to me that it is native copper . Copper is humans oldest metal, dating back more than 10,000 years . During the stone-age I wonder what they thought of these rock like metals . 10,000 years is little time compared to human evolution
Timeline of human evolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

**CTSSolutions** · 06-05-2015, 11:01 PM

Very cool stuff/info in this thread.

Awesome find! With your user name on here I figured this isn't something you would ever sell. Enjoy it

**Abuilder** · 06-06-2015, 01:23 PM

I,m glad Copper Head started this thread. A couple of weeks ago I was doing some cleanout work in my uncles basement and grabbed this copper rock from upper Michigan. My Uncles use to do lapidary for years and would travel all over the USA picking up rocks. I don’t mean a rock here and there but TONS of them. The mess of rocks in his basement could fill and eight yard dumpster no problem.
I did my part removing 1.2 pounds LOL

Just to add a bit. I found unrefined copper is very hard to cut.
BTW it was a lot greener but I dumped it in some muratic acid to clean it up some but it didn't work very well.

**armygreywolf** · 06-06-2015, 01:38 PM

There are some CU-ul rocks at a state park called copper falls state park in wisconsin. I went there as a kid and found a smoothed rock from the water that turned out to be a break off from a very large copper vein further up the river. What makes it cool is that copper is heavier than most "smooth pebbles" so it took an exceptionally long time to migrate down the river, and had not quite made it to the falls yet, where I found it in all its green-gray glory at the age of 8. 24 years later I still have it. I am rather blessed to live in Wisconsin, go north of the Wisconsin River and you can go wild rock hounding for copper...heck...if you know where to look you'll find more copper doing that than you would scrapping for it. (Shhh that's a secret). WI still let's you purchase mineral rights to old mines where you can pretty much find copper veins all day every day, just below the top soil.